• 1862 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.
• 1889 - Pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She completes the trip in seventy-two days.
• 1910 - Aviator Eugene Ely performs the first take off from a ship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. He took off from a makeshift deck on the USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.
• 1918 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
• 1921 - The Communist Party of Spain is founded.
• 1922 - The BBC begins radio service in the United Kingdom.
• 1923 - Kentaro Suzuki completes his ascent of Mount Iizuna.
• 1940 - World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers. Coventry Cathedral is almost completely destroyed.
• 1941 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U-81 sustained on November 13.
• 1952 - First regular UK singles chart published by the New Musical Express.
• 1957 - The Apalachin Meeting outside Binghamton, New York is raided by law enforcement, and many high level Mafia figures are arrested.
• 1965 - Vietnam War: Battle of the Ia Drang begins - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.
• 1967 - The Congress of Colombia in commemoration of the 150 years of the death of Policarpa Salavarrieta, declares this day as "Day of the Colombian Woman".
• 1969 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.
• 1970 - Southern Airlines Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team.
• 1971 - His Holiness Shenouda III is consecrated as the 117th Patriarch of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
• 1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.
• 1973 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
• 1975 - Spain abandons Western Sahara.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order 12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.
• 1982 - Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.
• 1984 - Zamboanga City mayor Cesar Climaco, a prominent critic of the government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, is assassinated in his home city.
• 1990 - After German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.
• 1991 - American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
• 1991 - Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.
• 1991 - In Royal Oak, Michigan, a fired United States Postal Service employee goes on a shooting rampage, killing four and wounding five before committing suicide.
• 1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.
• 2001 - War in Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters takeover the capital Kabul.
• 2002 - Argentina defaults on an $805 million World Bank payment.
• 2002 - The United States House of Representatives votes not to create an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks.
• 2007 - the last direct-current distribution by Con Edison was shut down.

Births

United States - National Children's Book Week begins